Prior to the conception and development of the present invention, outdoor flood lights and spotlights have been popular with home and office owners for after-dark lighting of flags, signs, displays, landscaping, building facades, and walkways. The lights can be mounted on buildings or on ground pegs. It has been known in the art to combine security cameras with outdoor spotlights, such as those found at www.spyville.com.
Combining a spotlight with a camera was taught by Allen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,258, in particular for vehicle use. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,476, Greene discloses a covert camera within a light fixture, also teaching capturing heat from the light for mitigation of cold weather effects. Van Sant et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,320,610 teaches multiple rotatable hidden cameras within a compact device. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,462,775, Loyd et al. discloses a covert surveillance system for viewing images sent to a radio receiver from a remote location such as a street lamp. In U.S. Pat. No. 7,298,969, Elberbaum discloses an upright camera housing for installing on a vertical structure such as a fence post. A common drawback with all this prior art is that the field that the camera views is much the same as that lit by the associated lighting. This makes it easier for an intruder or vandal to evade the sight of the camera by staying away from the path of the lighting.